Kerala, Gods own country, a connotation for the success in social development in India. You look around, you find a state rich in natural diversity, highly skilled people, lowest poverty index in India, highest sex ratio, multi religious state where the national minorities constitute 40% of the population. Ok, you have achieved all this. Good. But now what? Where do you want to go from here? May be this is the most confusing question that has become so pervasive these days. And what our public sector and Government is doing to find an answer for that? And where are those people who fought to bring in the highest social development, and why they lack an answer?
Each time I visit other south Indian states, I realize about the huge wall that block the economic development in my state. That huge wall is nothing but the lack of awareness of economic development and how it can impact and degrade the status that each Keralite enjoy because of their social development. The call has to be made for a second revolution in the state, a revolution for economic development. Our so called people friendly Government proclaim that they have brought in roughly around 7 billion dollar investments in the past ten years. But they never mention how these investments are flowing in and what percentage of that in infrastructure, and how low it is for a state with 35 million populations. A state, 26% of which is forest land and where 35 million people live, government and people are not realizing the need for good infrastructure. Statistics are scary as it reveals the chaos it can create in the state after 10 to 15 years. How long can a state rely completely on its remittances when economic planning cannot be done based on the same? Out of the total 55 billion dollar that came to India in 2009, 11 billion flew into our small state of Kerala.
People who have travelled across states could identify that roads in Kerala are lacking something. They look for potholes. Nope, nothing is there!! Perfect. But where is the quality. In retrospect, I could identify that many of the major roads were not resurfaced for the past one decade. Out of curiosity I decided to meet my friend who is working in the public works department in the capital city of Trivandrum. I have asked about the tender that was issued for the resurfacing of a major city side NH road. He revealed the shocking news that, the tender has been issued last year for resurfacing, but they do minor patch works and claim the bill for complete resurfacing. He revealed that most people in the department are corrupted and as he is against that, he is expecting a transfer quite soon. Further more, I was wondering how our state claims to be the least corrupted among all other states in India, most of which are competing against each other in building up the infrastructure which could soon become the life line of most.
In another incident that came to my notice was the construction of a small flyover in the capital city of Trivandrum. I still remember the fiscal in which the construction started as it coincided with the fiscal in which the famous Bandra Worli sea link work started. It’s been almost 6 months since the sea link was opened to the public, the small flyover for the Trivandrum city people still remain a distant dream. This was also backed by an unfortunate incident where the contractor who won the tender committed suicide in Singapore due to the inability of the government to clear his bill.
All these incidents again point to the question of ‘Where are those bold people who were holding strong for the implementation of social polices? Why are they not pointing their fingers at the government for the slow pace of economic development? Why are our schools and colleges not educating our students for the need for economic development?
The call is not for an economic model followed by our neighboring states, but to build a new economic model which can suits our social environment. Identify our strengths, and to build out economy which is backed up by a world class infrastructure. And all these reforms have to be backed by a call to make people aware of the importance of infrastructure development.
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